cut time
by korel.c
Summary: Seven-and-a-pair nin go back to change their past so as to change their future. Time-travel fic, AU several times over. No pairings.
1. cut time

Seven-and-a-pair nin go back in time to change their pasts.

Yes. I'm perfectly aware that all of them are OOC. No, I don't give a crap.

* * *

_((Naruto))

* * *

_

The first day he woke up to a quiet, empty apartment. No Kakashi-sensei busting in to wake him with a well-timed lightning jutsu (even if he dodged all of those anyway, he was just that awesome), nor Sakura-chan a warm presence buried into his side. Just himself, in a -- vastly larger bed? What the _hell_? Scrambling to his side, he propped himself up on one arm. There was a -- hell. He gazed at the orange jumpsuit, rolled up around his knees, and stared for too long a while before reaching out a hand to touch the familiar fabric.

Unfortunately said hand was the one he was propping himself up on, and he rolled off the bed.

"Guh," he managed, narrowly avoiding a nearby bedpost, hauling himself up onto his feet. A moment later Uzumaki Naruto, demon container of Konoha, did a happy jig on his bed, something that he hadn't been able to do for years, at least not after he'd gotten his new set of muscles in training. Wait, training.

Just _how_ far back had he come? Just _how_ much would he be able to change? And...he shuddered a little. What had happened to the self he had erased? Hell. He didn't want to think about it.

Looking around for the hitai-ate he had so prized, it usually tied around the base of his bed, he stopped. And stared.

Oh, hell.

There was no hitai-ate. Just a pair of goggles.

...Oh. Hell.

* * *

_((Tenten))_

* * *

"I'm home," she said to the empty air, chuckling at the pathetic joke even as she stroked the gentle lines of the bamboo planks. She had spent hours, almost literally days, tracing the sunwashed lines in these planks, the inevitable scuff marks on the crooked ones, and scrubbing the dirt off, well, all of them. They were familiar to her as nothing else was, this dojo that had almost literally been the place that she slept in at night. Rising, she breathed out slowly. They taught perfect calm at this dojo, as calm as the light slanting in through the lone window, that familiar beam of light she had trained with. Perfect calm, perfect balance.

Perfect aim.

She closed her eyes, wandering to a wall, and placed her hand on it, her hair slipping, unmanageable, through the two senbon she had been using for hairpins.

Unfortunate and fortunate that she had come back during the dojo's annual competition with the other fighting dojos in the Village. On the one hand, she had greatly wanted to show the elder of the dojo that he had not made a mistake in practically adopting her, but on the other--

She really didn't want to explain how the /six-year-old/ that he had taken home - was taking home currently - to eat meals with him almost daily was now probably his age mentally, a kunoichi, and pregnant to boot.

* * *

_((Shikamaru))_

* * *

_Bothersome, _he thought, and blinked. There was a man facing him across the last peace of his hill, watching him with narrowed eyes. Shikamaru looked down, and away. Nothing about the man's stance read danger, and in any case he was simply a six year old child. Most would underestimate him and dismiss him. Since he had no wish to provoke a fight, and even less of moving, he lay back, cushioning his head with clasped hands, watching the clouds passing by.

A shuffle of grass warned him as to movement, but strangely he felt no need to roll away even as the other man, muscular with ninja training, lay down next to him and adopted an identical position.

They had no need to speak. They didn't. The clouds, fluffy and ephemeral, did not seem peaceful with this man near, no matter how safe Shikamaru felt next to him. As if he knew Shikamaru's every thought, could not only follow them with ease but understand where, how, and why they were following to conclusions.

Even as the faintest hint of curiosity roused, and with it the faintest of fidgets (six years of age only meant that Shikamaru had yet to understand that having a plan for every situation, no matter how mutable, would fail on contact with someone equal to him), the man lit a cigarette and let the smoke, uninhaled, drift upwards as though it were a cloud of its own. Shikamaru stilled. There was a curious symbolism about the older man's action, something that was just out of reach. Something that felt like he was missing a piece of a great puzzle. (Six years of age only meant that while conserving as much energy as possible so as to be ready for anything out of the ordinary was a big part of Shikamaru's life, there was so much of said energy that he had to let it loose in figuring out other things.)

Shikamaru looked at the clouds, letting his mind drift. In time the stranger would move on, and while a part of his mind would always chew on the puzzle, he would not have to deal with this troublesome stranger again.

They stayed there for about the whole afternoon, as their shadows lengthened, and then the interruption finally happened. He sighed; it would be Ino. Who else?

At the first sound of her characteristically loud, boisterous voice, a vein began to throb on his forehead. That vanished in favor of figuring out why he felt the man beside him, ninja for certain, tense and then consciously relax, that being different from involuntary relaxation. Surely, not even the sheer annoyance of Ino could have made a ninja, chuunin or jounin with the way that he moved, tense on first hearing? Unless it wasn't the first time, of course; but Shikamaru could list easily all of the family friends that either Ino, Chouji or he had, their families being so close, and the man didn't fit any of them. No. Something else. Another piece to the great puzzle.

"There you are!" Ino said, looking at him, greatly annoyed. "Do you know how long I've been looking for you? You've made me go all the way around Konoha, you--you--" She stopped, her voice cutting off in a gasp. "Shika--"

"What?" Shikamaru sat up. Not much made or kept Ino quite that amazed, or speaking in a whisper, for quite so long a time. Yeah, yeah, it was only about five seconds, but he could swear that girl had the attention span of a fly. Of course, so did everyone else his age, so what was he to expect?

"Who is he?" She wasn't just staring past him anymore. Her jaw was just open. Never mind having the attention of a fly. She was likely to swallow one.

"I don't know." As much as it galled him to admit it, there was nothing about the man that could be classified. He was a fighting, dangerous ninja, but not a field ninja, not ANBU, nor the Hokage's guards. He moved silently, like the shadows that the Nara family controlled, and yet seemed to have everything predicted.

Shikamaru didn't know how he knew that. Gut instincts were, after all, something that he'd had to pay attention to if he wanted to evade the constantly seeking attentions of his mother, or the girl standing before him.

"Shika, he's so...dark and handsome and mysterious..." her voice came out in a whisper, a hand covering her mouth.

"...Feh. Troublesome," he grumbled, and behind him, he knew the stranger was smiling, slightly, more like a twitch of the lips than a proper smile. The same way that his father might have smiled when his son did something entirely expected, come to think of it.

There was a brief puff of air as the 'dark and handsome and mysterious' ninja left the area, leaving a tile to chink against a small rock in the grass. Shikamaru, still trying to solve this new, great, puzzle, noted another piece of it: a tile from a chess set, reading 'knight'.

And a cigarette without a brand name, but he'd already observed the pack that the man had taken it from. They shouldn't be too hard to trace, but the qi piece -- what hidden meaning did it contain...

Shikamaru winced as the squeals began.

* * *

_((Gaara))_

* * *

The room howled with the shuddering efforts of winds against its rock walls, and he slid down, letting his sand take the impact. Damn it, he wasn't looking forward to sparring with the raccoon again, not this soon. And this time, unlike the last three or four, there was no Naruto to absorb the blow. He didn't need the other jinchuuriki to boost his confidence, his self-esteem, but it was just a comfort to have the man -- boy -- around. No matter what objections, what depressions, that man simply bulled straight through it, with all the confidence of the sun rising. A harsh comparison from a Kazekage of Suna, but nothing else - he winced - especially with that predilection towards orange - could describe the man - boy - better. The sun, a cruelty in the Country of Wind, was bright and sunny in the Country of Fire - he was woolgathering. Clearly. He simply did not want to face Shukaku.

This situation was of course made worse by the fact that he knew that in this timeline, Naruto did not know that he existed, and that Temari and Kankuro, his beloved siblings, were currently huddling in the far corner of the room, trying to escape his gaze.

Unlike when Naruto had expressed his fear over having erased a former self by replacing him in the timeline, Gaara knew that he did all a favor by replacing his younger self. Well. All except Shukaku, who would be denied her bloodthirst. Speaking of which...

"I am going to sleep." Passive words, delivered with absolutely nothing behind it, stirred his older siblings to wide-eyed fear.

"Gaara!" -- he noted that even at this young age, even over the several months he had spent in this body, Temari had yet to call him -chan, or younger brother, something that she had done frequently in previous timelines -- "--You shouldn't do that!"

"Yeah!" Kankuro added, apparently to show support to his sister. "You know bad things happen when you sleep!"

He turned a gaze on them that was as empty as it was frightening. Both promptly shut up.

"Find me a place where I will do no harm."

Kankuro scrambled out of the room promptly, leaving Temari to glare after his retreating back at his cowardice.

"Gaara," she said, possessing even by this stage the beginnings of her great courage to come in the future, "You normally try your hardest not to sleep." --And the beginnings of her great maternal instincts. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. "So wh--"

"Found one!" Kankuro promptly tumbled back in, again interrupting his sister, who turned to give him a cold glare. Gaara matched hers with the emptiest he could emulate. This young, frightening Kankuro was as entertaining as levelling Konoha would have been to his original self. End result, Kankuro quailed under the glares that both were giving him, his face uncovered by makeup probably for the last time. His training would begin in the next week, but he had always wished to become a puppeteer. Knowing Kankuro --

Gaara let a small smile escape, genuine for once. With all the grace of the Kazekages he would become, he swept out of the room, leaving a perplexed (and perturbed) pair of Sand Siblings behind.

* * *

**((Naruto****.** **Again****.))**

* * *

He blinked, the forest becoming clearer to his sight as the weird film faded away. Sitting up, he checked himself for injuries, before standing. It wasn't the first time he'd woken up in some foreign place, although he was just pissed that he'd _travelled_ this time because he'd made both Sakura-chan and Tsunade-baa-chan angry simultaneously, angry enough to -- well -- okay, fine, because he'd managed to insult them both worse than _Sai_ did. Breast size and ugliness, insults and all, notwithstanding.

Okay, so. Where and when. He wasn't Konoha's leading-as-in-just-under-Commander-ANBU for nothing. Lifting his head upwards, he could hear the faint sounds of combat echoing through the trees, in the vague direction of the shore.  
Without hesitation, he took off running, his feet glowing with chakra and bounding through the trees. As the sounds of combat grew louder, peppered with the screams of the dying and warcries, Naruto checked his pouches for kunai and shuriken and exploding tags. Basic, simple tools. He had never needed anything else.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" -- Well, apart from some other help from himself. He spread across the trees, a racing black-and-ochre line, identical blond hairstyles bobbing up and down as he landed on one branch to spring off it, to land on the next one.

The trees parted awkwardly, as one clone leapt down off his tree branch only to be almost casually vaporised by a passing kunai. Even the great Uzumaki Naruto had trouble dodging an unseen kunai in midjump.

The other clones, including himself, halted on their respective branches to view what must have been a medium-sized Hidden Village once, only now shredded and devastated, with ninja still searching through the ruins and letting loose destructive jutsu to vaporise any remaining structures. Their headbands were obscured, unfamiliar in any case; almost archaic. Naruto palmed himself in the forehead. Of /course/ they'd be archaic. He'd 'travelled' again, hadn't he?

Naruto palming himself in the forehead, repeated thousandfold, was the equivalent of a thunderous crack.

As one, the enemy ninja wearing the old headbands paused, looking towards the sound. Naruto palmed his forehead again, making sure that none of his clones did it this time. For Kami's sake, the two bastards at the edge, dragging a wounded kunoichi for a purpose he was painfully afraid to confront, had paused to look towards him!

Unsheathing weapons, at least three four-man squads began to march against him, their hands forming into familiar seals.

_Shit_, he thought, a moment before he and all his clones leapt in a coordinated movement to dodge the water dragon that blasted their previous perches apart.

Twelve men, no matter how skilled, facing a thousand plus Kage Bunshin of Uzumaki Naruto? Not a chance. Not even bothering to restore the numbers, Naruto directed streams of his clones down all of the available paths, clearing out the rubble of the ancient headband people. Their jutsus were elementary, mostly water-based, to his surprise -- who'd let chuunin and bunches of genin sack a freakin'_ Village?_

There was a scream even nearer to the shore, and Naruto stopped unconsciously rubbing his forehead and took off, forming even more clones as he went. There were even more genin and chuunin here, engaged in combat at periodic knots of resistance, _their_ headbands adorned with his spiral.

Wait. What.

No thinking! Time to fight! His clones took out the fighters at the first swell of combat he saw, stunning both sides before he casually decapitated all of those wearing the non-spiral headbands. Chilled, the one jounin whose immunity resisted the stunning, looked at her savior before catching a spiral on a black-and-orange back and froze. Was he --

"Wait!" she called to a clone, had to be a clone, "Who are you?"

No answer, but her instincts caused her duck as two kunai met over her head, before warm blood spattered her hair. Turning, she saw a chuunin from her Village's attackers (a particularly brutal one, her memory filled in, who had tortured her sempai's genin team before her eyes) plonk onto the ground, his body rolling a different way from his head.

"Ah, sorry," one of the clones said, holstering his kunai and helping her to her feet. "Didn't mean for that to splash over you."

She had been on killing missions before, had been teased about her nearly murderous temper, but, but...this was _crazy_. This young man, couldn't be older than herself, tall and blond with blue eyes and the faintest of whisker marks on his cheeks, had casually decapitated, well, everyone. Even as other hims also decapitated everyone else. It seemed to be his favorite way of killing, honestly. He had this aura of confidence around him, something that put her at ease innately, made her feel safe, even though he was just a clone.

"So...who are you, again?"

The clone ducked and came up again with a back-kick, knocking the sneaking genin behind him, who had a kunai raised high, into a pile of rubble.

"I'm from Konoha."

It wasn't a real answer, but the sudden guarded look that had come across his face told her not to prod, even though she badly wanted to. She might have been one of the newest jounin in Whirlpool Country, but she wasn't _stupid._

The clone's head inclined a fraction before his eyes narrowed. "Well, fuck." Without missing a beat, a kunai lodged through his stomach, and he vanished with a puff of smoke. Without missing a beat either, one of the greenest special-case jounin in Whirlpool Country flicked a similar kunai through the smokescreen provided by the killed clone and was rewarded with a howl of pain. Her smile widened, and pausing to wake her fellow ninja with a pulse of chakra to a pressure point each, tossed herself back into the fray.

Elsewhere on the field, Naruto blinked, before doing the last seal in a small sequence and letting a bunch of (stupid) close-gathered squads of genin and chuunin have it, the 'it' in question being a rather large wind jutsu made to shred all in its path. Damn it all, but this invasion force was _big_. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that it was an attack by a Village unaffected by the Shinobi Wars. But that was just stupid. No matter how far back he'd gone, he'd never gone so far back that the Shinobi Wars hadn't happened...right?

The headbands said otherwise. Well. Fuck.

No matter. It just meant there were more ninja to kill. No one else, who would kill an unsuspecting Village, plunder and rape its inhabitants. He was ANBU, he knew the privileges of war, but the very fact that this invasion force outnumbered even Naruto's additions to the village's defenses screamed either overkill or something more sinister. Either way, they were about to get a very rude surprise.

The 'special-case' jounin looked up from the bloodstained field, her hands coated with the drying blood of her old jounin sensei, finally as red as her hair, as her genin team under this old lady had once joked. But, now was not the time to think of that. After all, there was a last request. The old lady had told her to go (and be safe) to a major ninja Village for help, as she was the fastest kunoichi that she had ever taught, with the greatest chakra control and stamina to run across the seas between their island and the other countries. Even as the old lady died in her arms, her smile brighter and more content than she had ever seen her smile before, the miserable (noble) old hag, the jounin had risen from her place and closed her eyes, something else liquid and warm trickling down her cheeks.

Even with the vast mass of clones, orange-and-black and pulsing, _safe, safe, safe, _there needed to be someone to avenge her Village. At least -- looking out over the shore filled with the dying corpses of everyone she'd ever known and the really bright orange clones still engaged in the sparks of fighting -- there'd be someone else from Whirlpool to continue on the legacy, even if she failed.

But she wouldn't fail.

Uzumaki Kushina ran across the corpses, out onto the tide, avoiding the whirlpools and shoals, speeding out onto the water, settling into a flat-out lope, setting her course for Konoha. Someone from Konoha had told her gut instincts, safe, and she was going to Konoha to find her revenge.

--- ---

Of course, after she got there, tattered and exhausted from her run and wanting to collapse, the first thing she absolutely _had_ to see after coming out of the grim Hokage's Tower was a tall, blond boy, who couldn't be much older than her, with his bright blue eyes and an aura of absolute confidence, wave at her. He didn't wear the spiral, didn't have the whisker marks, but if this was a coincidence, she'd name her firstborn child after a character in a book. Her husband could pick the book if he wanted. (She'd never know exactly how ironic that was to become.)

* * *

**_((Orochimaru))_**

* * *

Why, to think that Sasuke-kun had worked up the _nerve _to challenge him! So, perhaps he had been weakened by his little bout with his old sensei, coughing up blood and whatnot, but to think that Sasuke-kun had not only defeated his techniques with ease but had set free his experiments afterwards -- even taking those pathetic excuses for 'ninja' to form a team -- well, that was a challenge all of its own.

And he might have been fond of the search for immortality, but now that he actually _was_, kukukukukuku. Taking out Sasuke-kun when he thought his 'threat' from Orochimaru was over would prove to be more than moderately amusing. Equally amusing and faintly disturbing was the fact that Kabuto had somehow managed to inject a bit of his shedded DNA into himself, certainly trying to become immortal. Slightly more disturbing was the fact that he had taken about four or five of these...timelines...to find that out, although he did, succeeding also inn gaining various details of the situation surrounding Konoha.

Orochimaru wiped a hand over his slitted eyes, brushing his mane back. It had certainly been a while since his mind had felt so clear; he hadn't realised the burden of the search for immortality until it was over. In a way he was glad for it - his mental faculties had been one of his greatest prides - and in a way he hadn't noticed, that overwhelming goal had prevented any tinge of regret and guilt from stirring him. Isolating Jiraiya and Tsunade had been...painful, in a way.

He slid back the blanket and stood, gazing out of the window at the hollowed structure of his underground hideout, where he had spent the last few months (or years, why bother to keep count when immortality was his, anyway) training (he'd never be as obsessive as Jiraiya or that blond brat, or even Sasuke-kun) to regain the peak of his physical fitness. Coupled with his mind being clearer than it had been for decades - well! Didn't he look good today?

Walking through the empty hallways, the tunnels shivering with dust, Orochimaru had a bizarre urge to rise to the surface again to see exactly what was happening outside. He knew that Konoha would undoubtedly, right now, be having a confrontation with that frankly insane organization that called themselves Red Dawn, no matter that he knew deeply of the inner policies and...Pein.

Well. Perhaps it was time, and more than time, that he went out to see what was going on. He passed himself in a mirror (yes, those were in every room in the compound, and some of the tunnels, why do you ask?) and winced. Really. His hair. /When/ had he let it grow that unruly? Long, yes. There were times that even Tsunade-hime had mourned the fact that his hair genes had not been passed on to a girl, where as she said it rightfully should have gone, and gone to his uncaring...well, care, instead. Still. Hair. Ugly. Equals Sannin that was ugly. He would _not_ be beaten by Jiraiya at looking good, dammit.

Especially since he didn't look good at all. Not compared to Tsunade, anyway-- he let his mind trail off past mistakes, before holding up his long, precious hair, and watching himself in the mirror, clipped it up to his ears. Henge'ing to protect his snake eyes from being seen with open suspicion, Orochimaru Shunshin'd to the nearest exit, watching it open out from under the drains to the center of Konoha. And winced.

There was a crying of a nearby baby, blond-haired and kicking out against the pavement, with a glowing seal in a spiral on his stomach. Orochimaru simply stared, mouth open, showing fangs, for too long. Much too long for someone as legendary as he was. Did he...was that child...

Orochimaru grabbed him and ran for the safety of his compound, giggling madly. Much would change, much would change!

* * *

_**((Sai))

* * *

**_

"What the fuck. There's two of you. What the fuck." So said Naruto. He hadn't changed.

"Sai-kun, darling, _care to tell me why there are two of you_?" "It's not a Bunshin. I've checked, Sakura-chan! And I know Bunshins! You know that, right?" "Baka! You only know Shadow Bunshins!" "But, Sakura-chaaaaan!"

Neither had they. He blinked. Slowly. So did his other self.

He hadn't been expecting this. Clearly, neither had himself. They stared at each other, ignoring the other two.

"Do you want to leave Pinky and No-Dick behind and talk?" He could feel Sakura and Naruto twitch, equally loud and equally predictable.

"I think I'll stay with them, thank you for the offer," he said. He hadn't come back to meet his friends again to leave to talk to himself. Even if the concept was odd. To him.

Himself smiled a very empty smile. He knew that smile. "My books tell me that I must be feeling offended at the moment. I think that might be what the peculiar feeling is."

"I think," he said, "That the feeling that you are feeling is confusion."

They blinked. Slowly.

"Yes. It is also confusion."

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

Both Sai promptly stuck an arm out and clotheslined a different clone each, rushing forward to shake them.

"Nothing has changed?" He smiled.

"Old habits," he smiled back, his eyes closing.

"Ah."

"Indeed."

"I gather from your tone and from other cues picked up earlier, like your body language, that Naruto is dead?"

Beside the two of them Sakura had gone completely still, before speaking up, her voice trembling. "What are you talking about? He's alive. He's right here."

"Yes."

"Bastards!" Naruto howled, apparently restrained by an ink tiger that he /swore/ he'd seen neither of Sai draw. Even if the concept of having two Sai was making his head hurt. His eyebrow twitched. _More_ 'No-Dick' comments? He'd missed everything Sai had said. But that was 'okay'. He had not spoken loudly on purpose. Neither of him.

"Is Pinky also dead?"

Sakura was staring, wide-eyed, at him. As wide-eyed as the day that that Sasuke, the one he was supposed to have been replacing, once upon a time, pierced her heart with a kunai. No fancy tricks to escape for Sakura. Only death.

"Yes."

"I see."

"..."

"Why are you here?"

Sai looked at himself, before unrolling a scroll and painting a familiar picture across it, his hand guided by old memories of his first painting with people in it. It must be fresh for his younger self.

Sai nodded. "I see."

* * *

_((Rock Lee and Maito Gai))

* * *

  
_

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

_"LEE!"_

_"GAI-SENSEI!"_

"WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GET THEM TO SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE I KILL ALL OF YOU USELESS BUNCH OF SHITS? Honestly, you call yourself ninja?"

"That was not very nice, Tsukuyomi-chan!" The older of the pair said, twirling into an utterly ridiculous stance that literally had her cringing away from his teeth. She could /swear/ they, they, they...there wasn't a word. It sounded like a wind-chime, honestly. But that would sound like she was trying to praise them. She wasn't. She really, really wasn't. Come to think of it --

"HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?"

"Gai-sensei is filled with the senses of Eternal Youth!" the younger one felt free to add, and Tsukuyomi felt veins in her forehead begin to throb. "Also, we both have heard your security detail refer to you in terms that are not very youthful!"

Although painful to decide to follow anything that insane duo said, Tsukuyomi decided to turn her glare to better use. It seemed to slide right off that odd pair like, well, water off a bunch of water clones, while her security detail tended to go into whimpers when she treated them to it (or convulsions, if she was lucky). Ah, still amusing. She turned back. Promptly wanted to retract that decision.

The younger one had decided to copy the older one in the same pose with thumbs up. She could feel herself twitching, aching to bring down some retribution on, well, hell. Just being crazy. Still, one didn't get to becoming one of the leading clans in the Country of Fire by raining down retribution on something that might be stronger than she was. At least, with this bunch of useless shits blocking her way. After all, no one could be that, well, fruity, without being damn dangerous underneath, right?

"Ah, the Flames of Eternal Youth shine brightly in our Tsukuyomi-chan!" the older one declared, his eyes streaming tears. "Yosh! Reducing her ninja guards to fits is a symbol of her powerful passion!" agreed the younger one, incredibly loudly. Tsukuyomi looked around herself, swelling a little bit from their praise, taking a little pride in reducing even the most burly of ninja to a whimpering mass on the ground. Even if the praise _did _come from a pair of fruitcakes. She was honestly lost as to what to do now. In fact --

"HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET OUT FROM YOUR CHAINS?"

"What chains?" was the first vaguely normal reply she had heard from them all day, especially with the -- she winced again, trying not to puke -- the bright green spandex-wearing, ping-teeth showing, thumbs-up _weirdoes _-- yeah, yeah, whatever.

Then there was a clank as the younger one moved and Tsukuyomi frankly stared at the younger one tugging the heavy-as-hell iron chain and manacle off his wrist as though he were pulling a thread out of his clothes. "Oh! It is this chain that you speak of!"

Fuck yes, they were _way _more dangerous than _anyone_ she had _ever_ seen. _Ever._

"Fuck," she breathed. "_Fuck._"

"Lee!" "Gai-sen--"

"DON'T YOU EVEN START."

"The fires of her passion burn brightly!" the younger one said, very brightly. "I am inspired by her example!"

"Then we must be inspired together!" the older one said, "After all, all must recognise the feats of the beautiful twin Green Beasts of Konoha!" He did that stupid pose-thing again, his teeth 'ping'ing again. The younger one copied him. Tsukuyomi shuddered twice as hard.

She really, _really _hoped that Hashirama and the rest of the Senjuu clan would get back from meeting with whats-his-name Uchiha soon. This was really too, too insane for her own mind to contemplate.

* * *

_((Sasuke))

* * *

_

It had been an easy thing to wake up while in that damn barrel, sealed from the inside and out, his curse seal trying to activate itself while being toted about like a sack of hay by the Sound Four. Had been easier to control the curse seal. With his experience, that was simple.

Finding a way _out _of that barrel? Sooner said than done. His body, this twelve-year-old body of his, lacked the finesse and sheer chakra reserves that he would later have had, training under Orochimaru and then himself. Finally he bade himself to wait in the barrel, (Uchihas did not give up) reasoning that from what he remembered, he'd have come out anyway.

It w as an interesting experience, to say the least, of hearing the sounds of fighting (remembering the first time, after Kimimaro put Lee in the hospital with a philosophy-threatening injury), probably Neji getting pounded. He couldn't see anything, could barely _breathe_, decided not to burn the barrel open with a Katon. Might fry himself.

He managed a "Hn," that echoed in the now decidedly stuffy barrel.

Resigned himself to wait.

Finally the sounds of battle (Naruto and one of the Sound Four, couldn't remember who) echoed around him, and he tensed, waiting his time.

"Hahahahaha! You pathetic child! He came to us by his own will to gain power, and you? As if you could make him leave us! You're weak! You can't offer him anything!"

Strange. That was different to the first time. Were the repercussions of his arrival already occurring?

The barrel's lid cracked. Sasuke slammed through the lid, facing Naruto across the clearing. The other boy's face was scrunched up with determination. "Even if you're right," the blond admitted, "I made a promise and I never go back on my word! That's my ninja way!"

Sasuke wanted to bury his head in his hands. Naruto was...exactly the same. Always. Regardless of self-knowledge. Or lack of it.

"...And you want to be Hokage. Grow up, dobe."

"TEME!"

Really, had Naruto always been this dense? Or had he just grown less so after training with Jiraiya? If Sasuke had wanted to fight, he'd have been fighting. Even the...Sound Four boy looked perplexed.

Sasuke sighed.

"Where is your Curse Seal manifestation?" the boy asked, looking completely bewildered. Sasuke paused.

"Hn."

"What are you talking about?" Naruto. Face scrunched. Again. This time, more about confusion than determination.

"I don't need to be Orochimaru's plaything to be powerful."

The Sound Four boy actually blanched before going bright red. "You take that back about Orochimaru-sama!"

"He doesn't like young boys?" Sasuke managed, even as Naruto went bright red in struggling not to laugh and failed utterly, even though by the quirk of his eyebrows he had no idea who 'Orochimaru' was.

"Tongue-freak," he whispered across the clearing, oddly proud of being so childish. Naruto's eyes lit up in surprise, pleasure, and understanding, and equally simultaneously convulsed in laughter, rolling across the ground.

His laughter had the side effect of completely defusing the tension in the air. The Sound Four boy twitched. "No one insults Orochimaru-sama and gets away with it!"

He leapt at Sasuke.

The resulting fireball left remnants of the clearing and Naruto swearing at Sasuke several times over that he'd beat Sasuke no matter what.

Sasuke "Hn,"'nd, and led the way back to Konoha, leaving Naruto to pick his way after him. He had several lifetimes of just hanging around Naruto to make up for, after all.

* * *

_((Naruto. And everyone else. Again. Enjoy.))

* * *

_

"So what exactly do we do, Naruto?" the kunoichi asked her Hokage, staring at the vast number of seals and clones delicately brushing the patterns onto blank scrolls.

Their Hokage hummed, one point of his three-pointed hat hanging down over his face, trying to look rakish. He succeeded only in looking like a little boy playing dress-up in robes that didn't fit him.

Then he straightened, got that confidence about him that screamed 'highly competent ninja' and looked like what the Hokage should look like, and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her stomach was swelling slightly, and she doubted that even Neji, with all of his observations, noticed, but knew for a certainty that Naruto did.

"You step into the center of the seal that glows the brightest to you, and you'll be there." He paused, solemn and at odds with her memories of his younger days. "Take care, Tenten. You've been a great friend." He smiled that only-for-Naruto closed-eyes grin, and she could feel the prickings of tears at the corner of her eyes.

One of the scrolls glowed a dim white. Without doubt, she stood in the center and was whisked away.

* * *

"Troublesome," Shikamaru stood at the side, knowing that his comment would reach his old peer, the Hokage of the village. Still at heart he was that same Uzumaki Naruto that defeated the most foolproof plan by sheer determination. There really was only one word to describe him, even if he had repeated that same word many times before. Naruto simply smiled across the room at him, raising one hand in a salute. "Good luck, Shikamaru."

"Feh."

The man had grown over the years, Naruto realised, looking at one of his graduation year's classmates. He was taller, but muscular; still avoided responsibility. Naruto didn't wonder whether he missed the easy familiarity of Ino-Shika-Chou, he being the only member of his team now left. Naruto cricked his neck. He knew without consciously knowing that Shikamaru was going back to try to prevent that from happening, even if he should have to interrupt and vanish this own timeline.

Naruto shrugged. Shikamaru, the genius he was, knew the consequences better than he.

* * *

"You're shitting me."

Gaara stared at his friend, the one who had pulled him out of demon-rage and then saved him after his demon was pulled out of him.

"Why the hell do you want to go back to having Shukaku for? Isn't being Kazekage enough? Come to think of it, how is your village going to deal without you?" Naruto showed signs of growing a full-on panic attack. As if he wasn't planning to leave immediately after everyone else had left. Pah.

"A chance to right things. More than you know. I've taken care of affairs."

Naruto let his breath out in a sigh. "You know that I can't stop you, so I won't bother."

"Good."

"You annoying--"

Gaara laughed at him, his eyes open in mirth for once, truly happy, and Naruto could not help but grin back in return. It lasted about as long as it took for Gaara to vanish along with the seal on the scroll that he stood on, and Naruto found that what constricted his heart was kind of -- really painful.

* * *

"Shoo. _Shoo._"Naruto made the fluttering gesture with his hands, hoping they would take the hint. He was really tired, being a Hokage was more than a dream now and since it had also been Konohamaru's dream, he didn't want to get in the new Hokage's way and also didn't want anything more than to be able to rest now. He would be Hokage only as long as he stayed within this room, and he was planning to change that fact as soon as possible. "Lee, Gai. Move. Please. I'm just about exhausted."

The Green Beasts of Konoha looked at him, and stepped closer to both hug him incredibly tightly (so tightly that he thought his ribs were crushed, actually) and nodded at each other.

They wandered over to one of the two remaining seals and stood in the center, waiting around longer so that the last image he could see of them was the two of them in the Nice Guy pose, their teeth pinging.

Naruto laughed, the sound echoing through the hall empty of everyone but his clones. Those two...

* * *

He took off his Hokage hat, flicking it with a finger and watched it puff into smoke. Taking off his Hokage robes to reveal his old orange-and-black jumpsuit underneath, the robes vanished too. The real ones, after all, Konohamaru was wearing now.

The seal was at the far end of the hall. As he walked past the clones, each of them saluted him and dispersed themselves, until he was alone in the great hall, his footsteps echoing. He had scrolls on him with the same seals that had transported everyone else, in case he should find Sasuke-teme before anything like what had led to this present could happen. Plus backups. He'd learned better in the years he'd had, after all.

He thought about the past, all the things that could, did, would happen, and smiled.

Then he stepped into the seal.

* * *

_((End))_


	2. simple time

* * *

_**((Naruto))**  
**Interlude:** Shadows of a Hokage_

* * *

Naruto made the last swipe of his delicate brush before wiping the honest sweat off of his forehead, watching himself in the Hokage hat and robes converse with Gai and Lee on the other end of the hall. Well, as much as anyone could say to 'converse' with those two -- watching their exit in themselves would be sufficient to trip a body's automatic cringing response so...mightily, that sweat produced by the intense shuddering rolled in one large drop down his hair before being absorbed in his clothes. Naruto, never dignified to start with, hunched at the sudden chill of his jacket being drenched.

The other clones stopped to look at him for a second before continuing. Naruto made a universally rude gesture, and several other Narutos made an identical gesture back at him. They all went back to sealing, although this time, as there was really no one left in the hall except Naruto, it was more cleanup. Naruto liked Konohamaru. No extra cleaning for him, not to mention that he simply did not have the same chakra reserves as Naruto himself, and so could not afford several hundred clones' cleaning service.

No use dwelling on the past for Naruto. Especially not for this one, who knew full well he was a clone, not in the least because he could feel the absence of Kyuubi within him, and knew his own limitations -- that being a relatively limited amount of chakra, and a one-hit disruption ability. And all of Naruto's knowledge, but that didn't matter too much when you were a clone -- you didn't stick around long enough to put all of that to use, after all.

The steady footsteps echoed through the empty hall, and Naruto looked up to greet the Hokage with a winning smile and a thumbs up. His fellow clones were dispersing themselves with a salute, and after all, this was the greatest Hokage to have reigned, Uzumaki Naruto! He could even say that with no measure of self-praise, though that was impressive, if one thought about it.

Beside him, his fellow batch-clones saluted and dispersed. Naruto stood, one of the last dozen still surrounding the scroll, weighting down the corners of the large scroll should it roll itself up. Having already lost about eight scrolls to that, Naruto was in no great rush to move off his position, at least not until the Hokage was in the center and dismissed them all.

The Hokage was very close, now, standing on the edge of the scroll, the center of the seal only two steps away. Or a stagger. Naruto, even after years at Hokage, was never coordinated when he didn't absolutely need to be, and sometimes not even then. That had nothing to do with senility or old age, although it was becoming very close to the end of this tenure. To be honest, Naruto could not help but feel the greatest of weariness, happy that his/their time was to be up soon, or at least to be rejuvenated. He wasn't hyperactively young anymore, you know!

A sudden flicker of movement to his side was the only thing to warn him, and he dove at the Hokage. "Kunai!" he yelled, approximately the same time as all of the other clones did, leaping to the Hokage's defense, only there was one slight error on this Naruto's part.

The angle that he'd thrown himself at the Hokage took him directly across the center of the seal, and as the tip of his toe grazed the center of the seal, it activated.

The seal had been waiting for Uzumaki Naruto, unpredictable ninja and Hokage, to step into it and be transported across space and time.

It had never specified the _real_ Uzumaki Naruto.

* * *

_**((Shikamaru))**  
Pieces of A Grand Puzzle_

* * *

Shikamaru rolled the tile in his fingers, irrationally drawing comfort from it. He had traced back the brand of cigarettes that the strange ninja had smoked, and found that only one man, one jounin, smoked them; Sarutobi Asuma, the son of the Hokage. But, curious, he'd managed to slip away from the childish playtimes of the others to go see the man. He was not the same ninja who had visited him in his last private place, on the hill.

The grain of the tile were as familiar to him now as the regular evasions whenever his mother felt like making work for him, making him go out and 'play' with children his age, when she well knew that he couldn't stand them. They were too loud, too fickle; regardless, whenever she came calling, he slipped the tile into his family's qi set and dodged out through one of three usual escape routes, changing regularly. He didn't understand still how his father always found him if he was nagged into finding him; it must be something of his posture that gave him away.

As his mother's voice rose in demanding tones, Shikamaru gritted his teeth, placed the knight tile reverently on his side table, and hopped out the window an instant before his mother's footsteps sounded on the landing outside, heading for his door.

His birthday was coming soon. Soon he would be attending the Academy -- how bothersome -- alongside Ino and Chouji. Their parents were undoubtedly going to assume that the three of them were to work together in all aspects. He had his own doubts; parents, no matter how capable on the field of battle, tended to be remarkably short-sighted in regards to their own children. Shikamaru knew this quite well. After all, look at how Inoichi doted on his daughter, not knowing how fiendish she could be? To boot, she was _still_ talking about the stranger, the dark, mysterious, and handsome stranger, and Shikamaru simply sighed at the thought.

He froze in place as the sounds of rustling came from his room, before his mother's head poked out of the window, scanning everywhere for him. He drew himself into his family's shadows, and headed through the Nara clan's forests. Taking this route would confuse his trail, should Father come looking for him. One of the most peaceful places was their forest, and Shikamaru had no doubt that his father knew of the clearing in the center that was open to the sky.

He would not expect Shikamaru to go out into Konoha's market, a place he considered troublesome, and then double back to one of his more usual spots. Therefore, that route must be taken.

It was only logical.

As he headed off, a corner of his mind kept thinking of those hints, and a tile from a chess set.

* * *

A month before the Academy. Shikamaru was not looking forward to going; the thought of his time being taken up by simplistic studies and filling out worksheets, interspersed with being forced to move -- torture at its most distilled. Still, it was better than listening to Ino squeal on again about dark and mysterious and handsome boys. Although he was glad for some strange reason that she wasn't talking about the stranger anymore (it made him incredibly uncomfortable for an odd reason he refused to confront), obsessing about a string of boys their own age was far worse, since she could get access to her crushes more often. Then fill his ears (when not deafening him) with shrieks of praise and nagging when he refused to listen. His hands tightened around the bouquet of flowers that he held unconsciously as a peace offering to Ino. He had managed to get unique flowers from the forest with the absolute minimum of effort. With luck, Ino would get a glimpse of the bouquet and stop screaming at him for not listening to her babbling. He preferred being able to hear.

Shikamaru winced as screams from Ino; fear, then anger -- echoed through the woods, startling more than one flock of birds into flight. Some primal instinct forced his eyes wide, his breath panting. He dropped the flowers he was holding and ran towards the scream, startling ever more birds in his flight. He gritted his teeth. He was too _slow! _He reached into himself, his chakra, and _ran._

He was lazy because he saved his energy for important things. This counted.

From the shadows, a man slipped out from behind a tree, picking up the flowers. Tracing his fingers across one dewy petal, the droplets came off in his hand. Hope, the flowers in a clump signed. Hope, innocence, happiness. There was no forethought in the arrangement. Looking up at the clouds his hands moved automatically, as habitual as flicking a lighter was. The brightest of flowers, a rare yellow-gold orchid, just slightly off-center. Fragile pink flowers, blending from the outside into the center. The pure white, frondlike branchlets of the only not-flower in the bouquet, he twined around the orchid. Hope in friendship, loyalty in innocence through troubles, delicacy in difference; layers beneath layers, meaning layers. Seeking something, some further kind of symbolism, the man raised it to his eyes to see if Shikamaru or he had left any oddities in position. As he had expected, nothing from his own rearrangement. But Shikamaru had crushed the flowers in his fist. A crinkled petal and three scrunched stems; in the modifications of the Grass' signal language -- or what it would become, five years from now -- it meant good news, relief; friends ahead.

* * *

Ino wandered out of the woods, her lips pursed firmly into a line, fists clenching before relaxing. It was unladylike to fume, to steam, at the girls who were tormenting someone younger than them. Sakura did not have such a large forehead as the others would have her believe. She was pretty in her own way, graceful, delicate. She was not scared of the turn of events that had led up to her running upon Sakura. She was glad for the trees, the rocks that contrived to knock her off balance. She was! She was even grateful to Shikamaru, who had seemed to be running for her, before seeing her unharmed and veering away to run past her in a flash of speed utterly unlike his usual self. Her mind, her Yamanaka mind, could not fool itself, and the shadows seemed to stretch now as they did then, even as they darkened and lightened with the clouds passing the sun. Regardless; she tore her mind away from the shadows that had seemed to reach out from the trees to clutch her and knock her off balance. No, she wouldn't think of that. But she would be glad that turning to scream at Shikamaru for abandoning her had caused her to catch sight of a bunch of girls insulting another, who had seemed to shrink into herself, hugging herself to present a smaller target.

Whatever anyone might say about Yamanaka Ino, whether positive, like her father, or negative, like Shikamaru, she was always fair. It just didn't matter whether it was nagging Shikamaru, or standing up for someone in a worse-off position.

The look of gratitude on Sakura's face was better than yelling at Shikamaru, oh he of the unchanging grumbles, anyway.

She sat down abruptly, the last of her indignation-fuelled energy gone. The shadows were shifting again, but this time they felt safe, almost comfortable in the shade. In fact, something prickled the back of her neck. It felt too...

She turned.

There was a bunch of flowers. It was also something that lay up at the pinnacle of kunoichi-arranged bouquets, and as her family owned a flower shop, she knew even more that it was not only impossibly out of her league, currently, it also conveyed a message. Hope. Innocence. She read those easily. But the peculiar way, the pattern of how the flowers and colors were arranged, hinted at something better, deeper, more complex.

Her fears and shocks and angers of the day promptly vanished, and she gathered the flowers in her hand, feeling a smile break out. Little eight-year-old Ino, walking home. Little violent Ino, cradling the flowers gently. Little beauty-obsessed Ino, holding something that was to her eyes perfect. She walked the way home, the scent wreathing about her, and no small number of people stopped, stared, and cheered up, went on their way.

Only much later, a week, two, when the individual flowers were pressed and dried, the bouquet itself living on in a photograph for her to remember and aim for, did Ino realise that Shikamaru and the bouquet had come from much the same direction. When she confronted him the next day, he proved himself so inept at arranging flowers that all she had left to her was a certain kind of wonder at the angel who watched over her.

* * *

**_((Naruto, Hokage))  
_**_Tracing Them Back_  
**_

* * *

_**

Naruto had the weight of experience on his shoulders. He had seen death, cheated it out of its finest treasures (he will always consider the lives of his precious people to be the finest treasures on earth) been unable to prevent it, had seen brutal and cruel experiments. He had seen a beloved teammate betray his village to pursue his lifelong dream, and come back to hurt the village further after achieving said lifelong dream. He had seen many people who he had always known were important and unique come to see how important and unique they were.

He had never seen a transportation seal vanish because he accidentally stepped over the line.

Well. That wasn't strictly true, mainly because he was usually the one being transported, but he still worried. Regardless, there was no way to affect himself now --

He thought he'd gotten over having his mind boggle at his clones' antics, but this one took the entire Ichiraku stand.

"Alright, guys," he called, his cringing reaction causing a sweatdrop as he summoned another batch of clones, "Back to work."

* * *

**_((Maito Gai and Rock Lee))_  
**_Playground and Bullies_

* * *

"Enough!" the Hyuuga said harshly, glaring at the man standing opposite him. "My father and I are in agreement for once; it is bad enough that you want us to work alongside the Uchiha, but do you also take me to be a madman? No, the true madmen are those two," he favored the training ground with a glance before his eyes crinkled slightly, the Hyuuga equivalent of a seizure's worth of cringing, and turned around back around. "And you."

The man opposite him simply smiled with deep serenity, even while the man's younger brother was being restrained through dint of immense effort from a concerned Tsukuyomi. Irritated as she might be as well with the Hyuuga arrogance, she was no great shinobi like the leader that she looked up to and her leader's little brother. She knew also that offending the Hyuuga heir was not to their advantage, and their esteemed leader seemed to have it under control, at any rate.

"Y--mmph!" Tobirama flushed red and stopped struggling against his restrainer's hands, turning to glare at her with less than fury. He understood her hesitation and quietened down, stealthy and serene as his brother. The Hyuuga elder looked on with haughty arrogance, pointedly looking away from the two of them. Tsukuyomi found herself unready to kill the old man...she wanted to stab him over and over again without pause for a day or two. Come to think of it, if she trained like the two green-wearing fruitcakes down in the training ground they were standing near, she might even be able to manage it.

The smile that crossed her face and the glaze in her eyes at that thought caused Tobirama to back away very slowly, hands up in an offensive position, should the beautiful (but crazy) woman decide to direct that intent his way.

"So where is this quality that will provide your so-called Village to grow? I see only madness," the older Hyuuga said, his blank-pupilled eyes meeting Hashirama's. "Neither of the two have the chakra reserves necessary to be great ninja; the younger one even has deformed chakra coils. If this is the cream of your crop, Senju Hashirama, it is a surprise that you are one of the top clans in Hi no Kuni."

The pointed tone of his voice made Tobirama grit his teeth, while Tsukuyomi's smile grew brighter and her eyes even more glazed. Their hands were right next to each other, simultaneously clenching.

Hashirama was serene. "The quality they have? It is simple. They do not need special powers with ninjutsu. Though they are not of my clan specifically, Lord Hyuuga, their penchant for hard work drives them to greater success in a different ambition than I. In that sense they are even greater than I." He smiled, again serene as down on the grounds, Lee blocked a spinning kick from his sensei and countered with a punch that would have splintered millenia-old trees with its speed and strength.

"Hashirama," the old man said. "The answer to whether we have decided to join is no. There is nothing," a sneer twisted his lips, "That could induce us to join this alliance of madness. Take back your land, your gifts; we accept none."

"Farewell," the younger man said, smirking at the discomfiture upon Tobirama's face and the outright horror on Tsukuyomi's, making a mockery out of his final bow. Tsukuyomi's face began to turn bright red with irritation. "Hashirama," the young man raised his voice, "Have _fun_ with your Kisuke bitch. I am sure your brother will like the leftovers."

Tobirama turned dark with anger simultaneously with Tsukuyomi, and began to form handseals. Tsukuyomi was quicker, taking three quick steps forward and using the entire of her body weight to deliver a resounding slap to the young man's cheek. As he crashed to the ground, the older Hyuuga's sneer grew more pronounced. "As you cannot even control your kinsmen, Hashirama, there will be no alliance from me at any point in the future."

Hashirama's lips thinned, but he bowed. "I prefer to see of it in that I do not dictate my kinsmen's every action and word. They are free to speak or act as they would." The old Hyuuga said nothing, his sneer aristocratically arrogant still.

The younger Hyuuga spat out blood, looking shocked. "You would dare hit the heir to Hyuuga?" He smiled. "This will be your downfall." He fell into stance, his hand stabbing out at Tsukuyomi, scoring a hit. As she reeled over and clutched her suddenly numb arm, the Hyuuga's face wrinkled into a sneer. "Not only do you fail to respond to your natural superiors, but you have no skill as a ninja. Father, you were correct for once. This is no clan to ally with." He lashed out again with another palm strike.

Biting back a curse, Tobirama leapt forward to shield his ally, forming handseals for the most basic of Suiton techniques. Hashirama stuck an arm out, halting his brother's progress. "Do not worry," he added in a murmur, "I anticipated this happening."

Two green blurs flared out of the training ground, revealing themselves to be Rock Lee and Maito Gai. While Lee caught ahold of the younger Hyuuga's wrist, blocking the man from sealing Tsukuyomi's tenketsus further, Gai put his hands on her shoulders and unsealed the tenketsu with a brief pulse of non-intrusive chakra. They had developed the technique in the later years of their wars; Neji had worked unceasingly after the Hyuugas' betrayal of Konoha.

"It is not fair to attack a lady," Lee was saying to the Hyuuga.

"She hit me!" the Hyuuga protested, while the elder raised one eyebrow to look at the two men. Hashirama, who had dealt with their kind before (Hyuugas were a kind of their own), watched in interest as the man's minute expressions showed his reassessment of the situation.

"That is still no excuse," Lee said, shaking his head slowly. "Hyuugas are after all the most unfailingly polite of the clans, are they not? This includes treating a lady as a lady, regardless of what she may do to you." His eyes went vacant in memory.

Seizing on the moment, the younger Hyuuga brought his other hand in with a strike, while slipping out of the green-wearing boy's grasp.

Or tried to. Even though his gaze was still far away, Lee executed a complicated maneuver involving only the arm grabbing the Hyuuga's wrist, and twisting -- and the younger Hyuuga ended up with his face in the dirt and his clothes smeared with grass stains. And the man holding him had yet to let go of his wrist. The young Hyuuga made a halfhearted attempt to strike at the other boy from where he was, but Lee took a simple step backwards and clenched his hand tighter around the Hyuuga's wrist.

The young man choked and gradually turned paler, and then redder, by the second. His eyes bulged, and then went vacant as Lee's had done before him. Lee let the boy's arm drop, then turned and flashed a brilliant grin at both the older Hyuuga and his sensei.

"Ah, Lee!" Gai said with his hands fisted by his side, "You have gained great insight and prowess! I must redouble -- no, triple -- my efforts to keep up with you!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"G--"

"STOP. IT. NOW." Tsukuyomi glared at them, her own fists clenched at her side. Instantly, she and all others, Hyuuga included, indulged in a fit of cringing. Gai and Lee...reverted...into their standard Nice Guy pose, including sunset and dashing waves.

The Hyuuga actually activated his Byakugan, trying to see where the jutsu was being projected from.

After the pinging had subsided, the Hyuuga turned his eyes on the two green-wearing men, abruptly projecting killer intent. Tobirama and Tsukuyomi both slid into fighting stances, almost mirrors of each other, ready to defend the two honorary members of the Senju clan. They needn't have worried, however; the killer intent slid off the two men like feathers would do a duck's, and not even a spike of chakra on the part of either of them honored the 'contribution' of the head of Hyuuga.

The heir of Hyuuga continued his unconsciousness at their feet.

"Well, if that is all, Hashirama-sama, I would like to return to our training." Gai gave a half-bow, and deliberately turned his back on the Hyuuga elder. He gestured towards Lee, and together the two of them _blurred_. Tsukuyomi, even watching them, could not detect how they managed to move so outlandishly fast. The clumpf of dirt and flesh on flesh was the next sound, as they moved into sparring once more.

Tsukuyomi toed the heir of Hyuuga, turning him over so that he snorted mud into his nose. The older Hyuuga made no move to interfere, although -- was that the faintest twitch of his lips? No, surely not.

"Hashirama," the Hyuuga said, "Assuming that you have our allegiance and you do form your new Hidden Village, what is it that you would call it? This is the country of Fire, after all; and while chaos and fire and," he sniffed, "_Uchihas _may co-exist, what is there for our ninjas to hide in?"

Hashirama's eyes widened slightly before settling back into serenity. "I was thinking...Konohagakure." There was a not-so-discreet glance at the two green-clad men. "The most unassuming of cover is also the most obscuring."

The Hyuuga remained stone-faced, but picked up his slumbering son with a touch of chakra. "There is wisdom in that, Hokage-san. Perhaps we will finalise our arrangements at another time."

He nodded to them respectfully, looked at the two men for a brief moment, and leapt off the ground with surprising vitality for one so wrinkled.

"Brother?" Tobirama asked, "How did that -- what just happened?"

"Through complete determination," his brother said, scratching his neck, "And sheer balls. I do not think we will be able to pull something like that off again. Oh, and the Konoha thing? I just liked the name -- and I figured that if I actually named our village that, the two of them would stop screaming it at the top of their lungs and seeming like complete madmen instead of, well, just madmen. We _do _have to look after the ninjas of our Village." He shuddered. "And our reputation."

The look of joy and dawning hope in the eyes of his brother and, he hoped, his brother's future wife, was a sight to see indeed.

* * *

_**((Sasuke))  
**Both Sides Of The Same Coin

* * *

_

"So there was a lot of explosions and kunai being thrown and I saved you?" The likelihood of this Naruto managing to summarise his entire life's story after his timeline's Naruto had managed to turn him back from his own set path to power was slim to none, but then Naruto had always been unpredictable and far more profound than any of his judgments about Naruto had mentioned.

"...I don't get it."

Never mind.

"But you're back with us now, right? And that's all that matters!" Naruto's eyes were bright, shining, and not for the first time Sasuke felt a deep, sharp pang of regret that he had had to leave his own world's Naruto behind.

They were in the hospital, keeping watch over their fellow genins' beds; Shikamaru, Neji, Kiba. Sasuke fell silent, just looking at Naruto, bright fresh Naruto without a trace of the deep cynicism that had marred the later years that he had spent with Naruto. It was both refreshing and annoying simultaneously -- no one else could make him want to actually hug them and bang their heads on hard walls at the same time.

The doors burst open, and Sakura ran into the room, squealing uncontrollably and trying to wrap her arms around him.

Wait. Never mind. Make that all the members of Team Seven, then. Just to see her again...

He dodged her flying tackle and seized her by the back of her neck, rotating slightly to set her down gently. "Sakura. Don't."

She squealed at him, and he winced. Honestly, the best part about leaving Konoha was how much Sakura had changed since he returned. The times of his betrayal were faded, as though it were a particularly bad dream, but this nightmare with Sakura went on and on.

The look on Naruto's face, clearly pining after the pink-haired demonic girl (ha, the irony), was almost as damning. His genius failed, as it always had, around the two of them. But mustn't there be some way to toughen Sakura up, make her stronger, and make Naruto a little less...innocent? Not so much as to ruin his innocence, mind, but just...their sheer naivety was annoying. Infectious. And in this timeline, as in all of them, he couldn't -- they couldn't -- afford to be.

He just...didn't know what to do. Hanging out with Naruto was one thing, beating him time and again with the grand Katons he had knowledge of was another thing, but keeping the three of them alive and together as a team was a task that loomed so large in front of him that he felt like banging his head on a wall and beating the prescience out of his head. Unfortunately choosing that solution would mean choosing naivete over foreknowledge, and that was one thing that Uchiha Sasuke had never been accused of.

Well. Justifiably accused of, anyway.

Kakashi was a no-go; while he would train Sasuke and mellow out when Sasuke wasn't around with the rest of the team, he had been through the timelines with his own Naruto often enough to know that his teacher found kinship too close with him. Not an ideal situation, when it was Naruto that his brother here was after, it was Sakura who wouldn't be able to keep up, it was -- he wasn't strong enough in this body to take on his brother, and he knew it. He got up from his vigil beside Shikamaru's resting form, watching Naruto and Sakura follow him with their eyes.

"Dobe. Fight?"

Naruto uncoiled out of his cross-legged position and fairly ran at Sasuke. Sasuke flicked a glance at Sakura and contemplated saying the dreaded words. Weighed the costs against the benefits. Weighed his gut instincts against his logic. Shrugged. Threw it all to the winds. Dealing with any Naruto for an excess period time caused certain things to rub off.

"Are you coming, Sakura-chan?" he said, light affection in his tone. Both Naruto and Sakura stared at him before they both erupted into flailing, loud noise. Sasuke smirked, just a little bit, before swiveling to walk out the door.

He was jumped by both of his teammates in half a step.

Shikamaru grumbled at the noise, even in his sleep.

* * *

_**((Naruto))  
**Wish I'd Never Been Born At All

* * *

_

Naruto tapped lightly on his parents' door, wishing that all three of them (well, him and his father, anyway) were less...awkward around each other.

There was no response. He tapped. Harder.

No response. Huh? Didn't their chakra say that they were within? He really wanted to talk to his father about that Hiraishin jutsu -- make use of his experience while he was here, right?

No response. He slammed on the door, hard.

"OI! DAD!"

There was a rustling of clothing and the door creaked open ever so little, and Minato stuck his head out of the door. "Naruto, please. Go away."

Naruto got one glimpse--

"Yeah, okay --" He swivelled and fairly ran away, muttering "ohshitohshitohshit..." and trying to figure out if chakra would let him _burn out his eyes_ and _melt his brain_.

Little did he know, his one interruption guaranteed that Uzumaki Naruto would not be born.

* * *

_**((Naruto))  
**Softly, Gently

* * *

_

The second day he woke up to a quiet, empty apartment. No Kakashi-sensei busting in to drench him with a /cold/ Suiton jutsu -- cold, cold, _coldcoldcoldcoldshitKakashi-senseileavemethehellalone_) nor Sai, making a cutting insult from the ground where he slumped from last night, stayed up too late fighting and painting and insulting, all bony, pale skin and lack of tact. Just himself, in a -- vastly larger bed? What the _hell_? Scrambling to his side, he propped himself up on one arm. There was a -- hell. He gazed at the orange jumpsuit, rolled up around his knees, and stared for too long a while before reaching out a hand to touch the familiar fabric.

Unfortunately said hand was the one he was propping himself up on, and he rolled off the bed.

"Guh," he managed, snatching his hand out to catch himself on the ground, narrowly avoiding a nearby bedpost. He hauled himself up onto his feet. A moment later Uzumaki Naruto, demon container of Konoha, did a happy jig on his bed, something that he hadn't been able to do for years, at least not after he'd gotten his new set of muscles in training. Wait, training.

Just _how_ far back had he come? Just _how_ much would he be able to change? And...he shuddered a little. What had happened to the self he had erased? Hell. He didn't want to think about it.

Looking around for the hitai-ate he had so prized, it usually tied around the base of his bed, he stopped. And stared.

Oh, hell.

There was no hitai-ate. Just a pair of goggles.

...Oh. Hell.

...Wait. Didn't he just...didn't he have a...Whoa. He could have _sworn_ he'd gone through this situation before, although he didn't know why. His eyes blanked a little bit, searching his memories - well, future memories, that is, er...dammit, language didn't, couldn't express what he was trying to say! Er. Think about. He'd have to deal with shopkeepers charging him something wrong and different, he'd have to deal with Sasuke again, he'd have to...he cringed...sit through all the same. Freaking. Classes. Again. Well, this time, this time around, he'd just skip school! So there!

...Er. Didn't he do that...last time? Whatever. No day is too early for Uzumaki Naruto, Number One Unpredictable Ninja! ...Er. Even if he wasn't, technically, a ninja yet. Yeah. Just technically! He was a ninja, with the largest amount of chakra reserves and the Kyuubi, and...

His thoughts stuttered to a halt, for the longest moment. The...Kyuubi? But he was a...

He scrambled out of bed, cursing as his leg caught on the sheet and he tumbled to the ground. This time, he didn't try to catch himself, wincing as his head met the wall, hard. As he reeled back, his eyes slitting in the sunburst of pain that suddenly caught him by surprise, he stared at the minor crack he had caused in the wall. Oh, and the seeping sticky warmth that seemed to be coating his hands. What the...hell...?

Why hadn't he...disappeared in...smoke...yet? Although...the shock and distortion of vanishing seemed very similar to how the world seemed to be changing different colors, now.

* * *

The newest tenant that lived below the demon fox, one Shijiru Nawaki, looked up in disapproval at how the damn kid seemed to be leaking water onto his nice, new secondhand carpet. His eyes widened further as he noted the pristine white drip a distinct red stain. And then again, and the red spread out further. And again. And again. It took two plus minutes before he realised that what was dripping through the cracks in his ceiling -- he had to fix that one day, he noted absently -- was blood and not some other kind of prank.

Demon child, the chuunin at the gate had warned him, but he had come from outside Konoha and to him he was still a child, and children did not deserve to bleed, especially not onto his nice, clean carpet.

* * *

The citizens of Konoha gasped as the civilian man by his dress and the awkward way he slung the bleeding child over his shoulder made his slow, uneven gait in the general direction of the hospital. Their first impression of the man was that he was crazed, given that the was helping the blond-haired demon child that was oddly in mismatched green and khaki clothes, and the second being that he was not only talking to the demon child, but not waiting for a response.  
Their second reaction, in those who hated the boy, the demon container, was that they were happy that his head was bleeding profusely, the blood matting his blond spikes until they were a mess of rust and gold, and some of the less bigoted felt nauseous as they rethought what they were doing. This was especially pronounced as the boy's head lolled backwards limply, and they were looking at a whiskerless face, the mirror-like image of their Yondaime.

Not that any citizen of Konoha went out of their way to help the boy, oh no; he was still the demon container, after all, who knew what he could do to them? Probably kill them or maim them or break their belongings, steal them when they weren't looking...they fortified their reasons with such thoughts and hurried on, trying not to let the image of the bleeding, limp boy stray too far into their consciences. After all, he _was _the demon container. Yes. Right. That.

The hospital. At first, the receptionist refused him entrance.

"All children under the age of sixteen are to have a recognised next-of-kin enter them into the hospital," she said, bored tone radiating icy _get out. _This, despite the fact that in Konoha concerned bystanders and friends watching over recently wounded was damnably common, half the hospital users being shinobi and all. He didn't let that stop him.

"He's a child, an orphan of the state. As part of that any adult can take care of him as long as they are a citizen of Konoha, can they not?" Never mind that legally he couldn't, there would be _nothing_ stopping him getting this child _reliable_ medical treatment. If he had to bullshit in circles, so be it.

Naruto's head lolled backwards again, and the receptionist came face-to-face with an almost identical view - if in miniature - of the fourth face of the mountain that graced Konoha, devoid of the whisker marks that usually marked the child's face. Her eyes perked up a little, before narrowing, but Nawaki pounced on the chance. "This isn't the demon child, you know." Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

"He lives alone in the apartment above mine. My apartment manager told me -" bullshit bullshit bullshit "--he'd lived in the upper part of town once with his parents, and they were kind people, until they both went out on a mission--" straight bullshit, right there -- "on the night of the Kyuubi attack," good to see the receptionist flinch, "--and just didn't come back. He's been living alone since then."

Her face went cold, abruptly, before he held out a hand to stop her. She silenced herself as she watched one slow droplet of blood trace its way down the matted, clotting hair, down the boy's cheek, dripping down in a straight line.

"So this is Konoha," Nawaki said, his eyes disappointed.

"I'll call a doctor."

---

0000000000000

_Shikamaru_


	3. compound time

**A/N:** It's _alive!_ ...Okay, not really. _cut time_'s put on semi-permanent hiatus. I'm still writing it, but I have other projects. This chapter is half the size of previous chapters, but I may take it down eventually and add more to the end.

* * *

**compound time

* * *

**

_Interlude: Fireshadow_

* * *

"Why are you doing this, Shikamaru?" his Hokage demanded. "You know the consequences of travelling, perhaps better than I do. If you are to interfere in yourself's and Ino's timeline, even if it is in a different world to ours, Ino's personality will not be the one that you remember."

The other man inclined his head slightly to one side, dangling strands of hair loose from his hairtie flowing in a breeze. "I know. But I also know that the points of her personality that make her Ino the most were established in childhood - so where I go will take me immediately after that."

Naruto looked down, his face a little grim. "Shikamaru, my most trusted strategist, tell me it's a good idea to have so many of our strongest and most experienced ninja away on this."

"Naruto!" Shikamaru chuckled, softly. "You've become formal. No, it's not a good idea, but then, what is? You and I've been through so many troublesome things. The Will of Fire will survive. And your successor has it in full. Must be a family trait."

"Or crazy families. Yeah, you're right. I just wish that..."

Shikamaru put a hand on his shoulder and Naruto looked up, shocked. Shikamaru had almost shunned human contact, since the death of his wife, Team 10, and his genin team.

"Who knows?" That was almost a smile. "In infinite universes, we might meet up, once or twice."

* * *

_((Contrast in Monochrome: Sasuke))_

* * *

It had been an easy thing to wake up while in that damn barrel, sealed from the inside and out, his curse seal trying to activate itself while being toted about like a sack of hay by the Sound Four. Had been easier to control the curse seal. With his experience, that was simple.

Finding a way _out _of that barrel? Sooner said than done. His body, this twelve-year-old body of his, lacked the finesse and sheer chakra reserves that he would later have had, training under Orochimaru and then himself (and then with Orochimaru again. And then with Kakashi. And Jiraiya. And the sandaime Mizukage. And Sarutobi. And Naruto, when he got off his ass.) Finally he bade himself to wait in the barrel, (Uchihas did not give up) reasoning that from what he remembered (all kami knows three hundred and twenty-five times), he'd have come out anyway.

It w as an interesting experience, to say the least, of hearing the sounds of fighting (remembering the multiple times, after Kimimaro put Lee/Kiba/Gaara/Gai/Ino/Sakura - wait, Sakura? Oh yeah, that was the seriously odd timeline - in the hospital with philosophy-threatening injuries), or maybe someone else getting pounded. He couldn't see anything, could barely _breathe, _decided not to burn the barrel open with a Katon. Might fry himself.

He managed a "Hn," that echoed in the now decidedly stuffy barrel.

Resigned himself to wait.

Finally the sounds of battle (Naruto and one of the Sound Four, couldn't bother remembering who) echoed around him, and he tensed, waiting his time.

"Mwahahahaha! You stupid child! He came to us entirely of his own will, to gain the power you couldn't offer! As if you could make him leave us! You're weak, crippled, so blind to the truth - hehehe - you can't do anything!"

Crippled? Anyone who'd ever faced Naruto would know that the demon in him _gave _him advantages, not crippled him. His opinion of the Sound Four boy plummeted further. Although that whole thing about being blind - if you counted Naruto as oblivious, then at least he spoke some glimmerings of truth.

The barrel's lid cracked, and Sasuke burst entirely out of the barrel, sharingan eyes spinning to assess the situation. And paused.

"Na...ruto?" The dobe across from him, who developed so differently (and yet, always the same) in all of the timelines that he'd been in, flicked his head to meet his gaze, and Sasuke flinched. He seemed to be on fours, although his features weren't as feral as when he was manifesting Kyuubi. But his eyes - his eyes weren't the turquoise he was so familiar with, instead milky white with a hint of cyan at the back. He was so shocked, his sharingan deactivated to see if Naruto was some kind of trick. "What...what happened to you?"

Naruto laughed, a hoarse, harsh bark of a laugh. "Did Orochimaru erase your memory or something, Sasuke? I'm blind. I'm weak. I'm the dead-last dobe, the ninja with no-name and no-worth, remember?"

Sasuke flinched. This wasn't Naruto. Wasn't him at all. The turquoise of his eyes which had vanished seemed to spill out of him and float, his chakra pulsing around him in a vast field that stretched backwards from him to across the horizon and out of sight.

"Wh-where's your Curse Seal manifestation?" the Sound Four boy stammered, before his eyes narrowed.

"Hn," Sasuke said, ignoring him completely in favor of watching Naruto. Maybe Naruto was blind but he certainly didn't act like that was a disability.

"Zankuukyokuha!" the Sound Four boy bellowed, red in the face, finally exasperated. Sasuke leapt into the air automatically to dodge it, activating the sharingan, and watched with awe as the chakra stretching far and beyond what he could see flared and dissipated the other boy's wind attack with feverish ease.

Naruto watched the other boy with unseeing eyes, not even tense. Sasuke oriented his landing to aim for a nearby branch, and landed as noiselessly as possible. No such luck - Naruto's head flicked around instantly and pinpointed his eyes without even thinking about it. "Sasuke."

"Naruto," he nodded. _Maybe this time, I won't have to train you up for the dangers ahead. I think...you'll manage fine._

"This isn't over yet! ZANKUUKYOKUHA!"

The chakra didn't flare this time, instead spiking directly towards the Sound Four boy, countering and dissipating the wind along the way. The Sound Four boy could barely raise his arms in self-defence before the chakra tore through his arms and flung him backwards, tearing furrows in the ground where his legs dragged along, breaking them savagely. The chakra coiled and dissipated, and Naruto got up from all fours, wiping his pants down.

"Sasuke?" Naruto said, sounding tired. "Are we going to fight now?"

The groans and curses from the Sound Four boy were starting to get on his nerves. "No."

A grand fireball incinerated the surrounding area, dissipating where it came in accidental contact with Naruto's chakra. When Sasuke was satisfied that the Sound Four boy and the sealed barrel were nothing more than ashes, he dropped to the ground, rolling his eyes at his own pathetic stealth when this Naruto instantly placed him again.

"Let's go home, Naruto."

Naruto gave him a disconcerting stare, made all the worse by the fact that his expression never changed, and he wasn't entirely sure that Naruto was looking in his direction in the first place.

"Yeah, sure, Sasuke." His face was creased in that familiar Naruto grin, eyes furrowed into slits that made his memories overwhelm his mind. Even his tone was the same Naruto, whiny and obnoxious. "But you're going to have to explain to me-"

_**KILLER INTENT**. HEAT _suffusing him, flushing his face and skin with heat. A blur of ORANGE and there were sharp claws at his throat, and Naruto's face angrily snarling in his, still blue and white eyes pressed close to his own swirling red and black -

"Why you smell the same as Sasuke-teme, but your chakra is so very, very different."

* * *

_((Practice Makes Perfect: Tenten))_

* * *

"See now, oji-san!" The voice was demanding, a little petulant.

Tenten raised her head, the grace in her movements startlingly obvious to herself as she saw a younger girl jerk her hand around in an awkward throw and the kunai in her hand streak towards the target, landing almost hilt-deep in the strawman, wobbling in the center of the body mass. Her eyes narrowed, and she strained to remember the form. There was something about it...inefficient. Not refined enough, could get the thrower killed.

"I see," an old man responded, a rich undertone to his raspy voice, and Tenten stiffened and stepped out of the way of the dojo, her sandals making no noise on the polished bamboo. The competition must have been over. That...or...

The noise level behind her began to increase, and Tenten slipped into the shadows, a hand automatically caressing the child that lay dormant in her womb.

"And," continued the old man, "What are you going to do with this new technique?"

"Train!" her six-year-old self responded with a bounce in her voice. "Train until you'll be proud of me, oji-san!"

There was a rustle of clothing before her grandfather-she-wished-were-hers rose from the half of the salle containing the targets and clacked across the bamboo floor.

A flash of stubbling, white hair, and Tenten ducked into the shadow of the trees behind the dojo. From inside, the steady sound of kunai and shuriken whistled to end in bullseyes. As well as curses, when a throw failed to reach perfection.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

"Tenten?" her oji-san asked, and Tenten barely suppressed the urge to snap out of cover, and go running to the leader of her dojo, who'd died a year before she had graduated. One measly year.

"Yes?" said the six-year-old, standing at the doorway of the dojo.

He smiled, a calm smile that made Tenten wish that she could reveal everything to him. Unfortunately, this could not be the case. "Don't go anywhere. We have to eat out tonight, remember?"

"Yes, obaa-san!" her younger self sang out, and the old man's eye twitched for a split second.

"For _that_ crack," he announced, "You're going to have to eat two plates of vegetables!"

In amusement Tenten watched her younger self cling to the side of the dojo doorway and wail out in pure theatrics. But, even as she remembered, though the old man softened, he never budged. But then, he knew the point of these games as well - if not better - than she had, then.

"No buts!" he said, firmly waggling a finger, before turning to march away. "Shoo! Go train!"

"Yes, sensei!"

Tenten couldn't quite keep the small smile that had grown off her lips, and she closed her eyes to remember the time she had invested in this garden. Almost without conscious knowledge, she shifted the rocks to a more familiar pattern, a more complex one than the one her sensei had laid out right then - one he would create himself later, and challenge her to memorise, mixing up the rocks.

She winced, looking at her assumption, then swept out a hand and jumbled up the rocks.

She stood without hesitation, slipped over the fence into the neighbouring backyard, and vanished onto the rooftops.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

* * *

_((Return: Itachi))

* * *

_

The last sight of Tobi's - No, Madara's - Mangekyo spinning assaulted him with illusions as potent as him using his Tsukuyomi upon himself. There was no way that he could be a man, unscarred again, next to the Uchiha compound when it seemed like it would be in full glory. The uchiwa fan on the long unused Genin Meeting House was in vivid color instead of the faded wreck that it had been while he was in his family; moreover, light and sound seemed to be coming from it.

There was a small explosion and a little black-haired boy fairly flew out of the door, two genin and a jounin sticking their head out of the doorway and laughing at him.

Itachi caught him.

The laughs quickly changed to scowls, and in seconds they had flooded out of the door, kunais at the ready.

"Who are you?" the jounin demanded, battle-ready.

"Uchiha," Itachi said.

The boy in his arms tensed, and wriggled to get away. Itachi let him go.

"What..." the boy said. "What'll you tell Shihoto-san? Please don't. He'll ban my team from the compound again and make me do another hour of katon practice. Please."

Itachi remembered his ancestry lessons. Uchiha Shihoto?

...No.

_No._

"I'm back from a long mission," Itachi found himself saying, eyeing the compound. "I think I'd have to speak to Shihoto-san anyway. But I won't tell you about him."

"Okay," the boy said. "I'm Ren."

"Hello, Ren," Itachi said. "I'm pleased to meet you."

The jounin watched him quietly. "Training Ground Four," he said, and his genin team ran off, their feet silent in the rustling grass.

"Where's your hitai-ate?" the jounin said.

"For the purposes of the mission," Itachi said, "There is a scratch through it."

The jounin observed him for a moment more. "Bring peace to the Uchiha."

-How...

_Nidaime._

* * *

_((Recursion: Hinata))

* * *

_

"My notes, Naruto! My notes!"

"What-Hinata-chan, calm down. What's wrong?"

"My notes on the Caged Bird Seal. They're gone."

"Gone? Do you think another village took it?"

"No...I put a tracking spell on it. It says it's still in Konoha. But it doesn't show me where it is, and it should!"

"I'll put a team of ANBU on it..."

"This," Hyuuga Hizaku said, looking through the pile of notes and then at his brother, in line for Clan Leader even though his advisors 'said that it was him, certainly'. The bonus for this scroll was that the seals on it was so much more advanced than anything else in this time, which guaranteed that no one else would be to undo it for a very long time.

All the solutions were in that scroll. And he refused to let anyone see it. He would burn it, as he died.

He smiled.

* * *

_((Seal: Minato))

* * *

_

"Minari! NAMIKAZE Minari, get your ass right back over here or so help me I'll make your days a living hell until our parents get back! IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?"

"YOU ALREADY DO!" the fresh genin shouted. "You boss me around all the time!"

"IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

Minato leaned against the corner of the courtyard and rubbed his forehead. If he'd known that his grandfather was so loud - and bossy - as a teenager, he'd have thought twice about coming back to this time. And yet...Naruto and Kushina deserved to have a family, if he didn't survive the upcoming battle.

He'd always tried to keep a curb on being selfish for himself, but he could afford to be selfish for his family, right.

Yes.

Minato placed his hand on the walls of the compound, and seals rippled out to trace their path around the walls. As one, the figures in the compound froze in time, their eyes moving as though they were dreaming. They would live their lives as in Minato's timeline; the difference would be that, under this compound, the Iwa ninja would not find them, would not destroy them.

Minato leaped over the wall of the compound and landed on the other side, breathing shallowly. The compound vanished behind him, leaving him in a forest clearing, alone.

He coughed, once, twice, and dissipated, into the morning mist.

* * *

_((The Konoha Clause: Karin))

* * *

_

Karin peeked her head out from behind a rock, watching Sasuke ink the final lines onto the seal.

Time, and time enough!

Sasuke stood in the center, his head upraised to the sky, eyes dark as night itself. Karin shivered in joy, then braced herself.

Sasuke's familiar chakra rose around him, blurring the air as he molded it, the seals in his hands flickering quickly from form to form.

Karin could tell when Sasuke finished, and was waiting for it to take effect; the last traces of Sasuke-energy transmuted into a translucent, humming technique.

She sprang.

"SASUKE-KUN!"

Sasuke had a split second to widen his eyes.

* * *

_Flash._

* * *

"You can't have him! He's mine!~ ALL MINE!"

"Shut your face, Glasses! He's mine!"

"Ohh...you're just as hopeless, Forehead!"

"Be quiet, Ino-pig!"

Sasuke cringed, slowly, and turned to face the frowning visage of the Sandaime.

"Care to explain yourself?"

* * *

"The other me was so regretful of the things he did to the Leaf that he wrote in a clause that changed my personality so that I would always be loyal to Konoha."

The Sandaime nodded, and lit his pipe. "And? What about that girl?"

"...She jumped me just as the other me activated it."

"I see. So now? What use are you going to make of her?"

"...I don't know. How effective is she now?"

The Sandaime peered at his crystal ball. Sasuke leaned over him to look at it, as well.

"I MADE POSTERS, SASUKE-KUN!"

"MINE'S BETTER!"

"MINE!"

"She's joined your legion of fangirls," the Sandaime said, puffing on his pipe.

"No," Sasuke said. "Not another one?"

"I'm afraid so."

Sasuke sank his head into his arms and sighed. "Useless. I'm useless."


End file.
